The rarestsuch image in the collection howeveris not

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Unformatted text preview: inary iews of Western
c
capital ities.
The rarestsuch image in the collection,
however,is not a printbut a painting.Heretofore unpublished,this hangingscroll is entitled Portrait of a Dutchman with a Servant (fig. 6). Executedin ink andcolorson paper,it
depicts a well-dressed Dutchman accompanied by a servantholding an umbrella over
his master's head. The style of the Dutchman'sclothingandwig help us datethis work
to sometime between 175oand 1770. Such
painted works are extremelyrare,and this is
the only exampleknown to this authorin an
American museum collection. Comparison
with similar images in woodblock prints
a
suggeststhat the servantis Indonesian; similar figure in a print in the museum'scollection is labeledas a nativeof Sarawak.9hough
T
this rarepainting has been catalogued as an
anonymous work, the scroll actually bears
two nearlyillegibleseals of the painter,which
w
may prove decipherable ith future scrutiny
and research. 82 MuseumStudies This content downloaded from 130.64.161.67 on Sun, 29 Sep 2013 20:18:18 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions LITTLE By the lastdecadesof the eighteenthcentury, the Nagasaki publisher Bunkind6 was
producing very fine woodblock prints specializingin imagesof both Europeansandthe
magnificent ships in which they sailed to
Japan. One of the outstanding examples of
this type in the museum's collection is entitled Cassowary(fig. 7).1oThe titleat the top of
the print,&quot;Kaswaars,&quot; the Dutch transliteris
ation of cassowary, a bird indigenous to
Australia and New Guinea.In this print, we
see a Dutchman, his young servant,and the
remarkablebird, which would have been a
completenovelty in Japan.The long Japanese
descriptionof the bird ends by statingthat a
cassowarywas brought to Japanby a Dutch THE embassy.Images of foreignerstogether with
unfamiliar nimalsand birds continuedto be
a
for many decades,and proliferated
produced
after 1854, when the American commodore
Matthew CalbraithPerry'ssecond embassy
impelled Japan to open its borders to all
Western ations.
n
Since, between 1635and i86o, the Japanese were forbiddenon pain of deathto travel
t
overseas,their naturalcuriosityregarding he
lands from which Europeanscame was partially satisfied by fantasticviews of Europe,
suppliedby such Ukiyo-e artistsas Utagawa
founderof the Utagawa
Toyoharu(1735-1814),
of Ukiyo-e artistsand a masterof the
lineage
perspective print. Toyoharu may well have LURE OF THE WEST FIGURE
10 Kitao Masayoshi
(KuwagataKeisai,
1764-1824). Ryogoku Bridge in
Edo: Enjoying
the Evening Cool,
1790/1800. Color woodblock print;
33 x 44.1 cm. Clarence
Buckingham
Collection, 1939.167. MuseumStudies 83 This content downloaded from 130.64.161.67 on Sun, 29 Sep 2013 20:18:18 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions LITTLE THE LURE 11
FIGURE Utagawa Toyokuni
(1769-1825). The Upper Floor of the
House of Cloves,
c. 1789. Color woodblock triptych print;
38.6 x 76.4 cm.
Clarence Buckingham
Collection, 1939.2139. OF THE WEST f
found his inspiration or this genrein Kyoto,
where he studied before moving to Edo in
1763. In the Horeki reign-period (1751-63),
the Kyoto artist MaruyamaOkyo was well
known for his megane-e (&quot;glasses- i.e.,lens-]
[
or perspectiveprints designedfor
pictures&quot;),
use with a special iewingbox, or optique(first
v
from the West),which lent threeimported
dimensionality to the image (see fig. 20).
These becamewildly popular, nd must have
a
madea greatimpressionon Toyoharu.From
i
the 1770sto the 790osn Edo, Toyoharucreated many superbuki-e that took advantage
of the new multiblock color-printing process perfected by Harunobu. One of the
rarestprints in the Art Institute'scollection
is Toyoharu's Scene of a Canal in Holland
(fig. 8), which can be dated to the 1770s.11
The precise source of this strange image is
unknown.12Thatfiguresareswimmingin the
canal, however,suggests a degree of artistic
licensewhichis fully characteristic prints of
of foreign lands, since the Japanese assumed
(wrongly) that the Dutch went swimmingin
their canals.Toyoharu created a number of
views of Europe, as well as imaginaryviews
of China. Japanese print designers often
mixed European and Chinese architectural
styles, as Toyoharudid here.Sinceboth were
exotic-indeed virtually unknowableto the
average apanese-their combinationwould
J
not have been recognized as incongruous.
Such prints claimed to present real views of
real places far from Japan, and their claims
were accepted.
Toyoharualso used perspectiveprints to
illustrate mythological tales and ghost stories. One of the best-preserveduki-e in the
museum's collection is Toyoharu's Newly
PublishedPerspective icture:The TangGate
P
at the Palace of the Dragon King, datableto
the 1780s (fig. 9). Here the Dragon King's
i
palace,which recedes dramatically n space,
is depicted in a Chinese architecturalstyle. 84 MuseumStudies This content downloaded from 130.64.161.67 on Sun, 29 Sep 2013 20:18:18 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions LITTLE THE LURE OF THE WEST 12
FIGURE Katsushika...
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